Books like Goliath

01

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff · History

Shoshana Zuboff spent years researching what she calls surveillance capitalism — a new economic logic in which human experience is turned into raw material for prediction products that are sold to businesses wanting to influence behavior.

A kindred economics read.

02

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein · History

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, published in 2007, argues that free-market economic policies — privatization, deregulation, cuts to social spending — have historically been implemented not through democratic persuasion but by exploiting crises and disasters that leave populations too disoriented and traumatized to resist.

Both dig into political economy.

03

Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

Thomas Sowell · Economics

Thomas Sowell published the first edition of Basic Economics in 2000 and has since revised and expanded it through five editions.

A kindred economics read.

04

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson · Politics

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's follow-up to Why Nations Fail shifts focus from prosperity to liberty.

A kindred economics read.

05

Capitalism and Freedom

Milton Friedman · Economics

Capitalism and Freedom was published in 1962, and the ideas it contains had been circulating even longer — the book grew from lectures Friedman gave at a 1956 conference.

A kindred economics read.

06

The Great Transformation

Karl Polanyi · Economics

The Great Transformation is Karl Polanyi's 1944 account of how a self-regulating market economy emerged in nineteenth-century England, what social catastrophe that emergence caused, and why the market society created its own political reaction.

Both dig into political economy.

07

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith · Economics

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is Adam Smith's comprehensive account of how modern commercial economies work and what policies promote prosperity.

Both dig into political economy.

08

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson · Economics

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that the fundamental difference between rich and poor countries is not geography, culture, or bad luck.

Both dig into political economy.

09

A Promised Land

Barack Obama · Memoir

A Promised Land is the first volume of Barack Obama's presidential memoirs, covering his 2008 campaign through the first two and a half years of his presidency, ending with the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

Both dig into american democracy.

10

Fast Food Nation

Eric Schlosser · Science

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation is one of the most consequential pieces of American investigative journalism of the early twenty-first century.

Both dig into corporate power.

11

Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business

Fredric Dannen · Business

Hit Men is Fredric Dannen's investigative account of the major record labels from the 1950s through the late 1980s, with particular focus on the network of independent promoters who controlled radio airplay through a system of payments that amounted to a legalized — and sometimes illegal — form of payola.

Both dig into corporate power.

12

Neuromancer

William Gibson · Science fiction

Case is a washed-up computer hacker living in the sprawl of near-future Chiba City, Japan.

Both dig into corporate power.